Monday, June 8, 2015

#85 Spontaneous Generation

It’s funny that I remember learning about Spontaneous
Generation way back in grade school or middle school because I don’t remember
much else from those days. But I remember the teacher saying that people used
to believe that if you put an old shirt outside with some seeds in it that in a
few weeks you would spontaneously create mice out of the shirt and seeds. How
foolish they were. I was laughing inside that we are so much smarter these
days.

As a matter of fact, Spontaneous Generation is known to have
been believed as far back as the 4th century BC and up until the
middle 1800’s. It was famously explained by Aristotle.

“So with animals, some spring from
parent animals according to their kind, whilst others grow spontaneously and
not from kindred stock; and of these instances of spontaneous generation some
come from putrefying earth or vegetable matter, as is the case with a number of
insects, while others are spontaneously generated in the inside of animals out
of the secretions of their several organs.”

—Aristotle, History of Animals,
Book V, Part 1 [1]

Spontaneous Generation is the belief that life can be
created in a very short period of time, almost spontaneously, if given the
right conditions. Here are some examples.

“For example, a seventeenth century
recipe for the spontaneous production of mice required placing sweaty underwear
and husks of wheat in an open-mouthed jar, then waiting for about 21 days,
during which time it was alleged that the sweat from the underwear would
penetrate the husks of wheat, changing them into mice. Although such a concept
may seem laughable today, it is consistent with the other widely held cultural
and religious beliefs of the time.” [2]

“Many believed in spontaneous
generation because it explained such occurrences as the appearance of maggots
on decaying meat.” [3]

“Crucial to this doctrine is the
idea that life comes from non-life, with the conditions, and that no causal
agent is needed (i.e. Parent). Such hypothetical processes sometimes are
referred to as abiogenesis, in which life routinely emerges from non-living
matter on a time scale of anything from minutes to weeks, or perhaps a season
or so.” [4]

It was not until 1859 because of an ingenious experiment by
Louis Pasteur that science began to realize that life does not occur by
Spontaneous Generation. In 1864 Pasteur came up with his declaration that “all
life is from life”. It has become known as the Law of Biogenesis.

“The law of biogenesis, attributed
to Louis Pasteur, is the observation that living things come only from other
living things, by reproduction (e.g. a spider lays eggs, which develop into
spiders). That is, life does not arise from non-living material, which was the
position held by spontaneous generation. This is summarized in the phrase
"all life [is] from life." A related statement is "all cells
[are] from cells;" this observation is one of the central statements of
cell theory.” [5]

“For more than one hundred years,
biologists have taught that spontaneous generation of life from non-living
matter was disproven by the work of Redi, Spallanzani, and ultimately Pasteur.
This work was so conclusive; that biology codified the "Law of
Biogenesis," which states that life only comes from previously existing
life. Although, this doesn't prove absolutely that life couldn't ever have
generated itself from non-living matter because it is impossible to prove a
universal negative. However, the Law of Biogenesis is just as solid as the Law
of Gravity. (emphasis added. Ed.) Even though we accept the law of gravity, we cannot prove that if
you continued to drop apples forever, that at one point, one apple may not
fall.” [6]

“Spontaneous generation is the
incorrect hypothesis that nonliving things are capable of producing life.” [7]

Well, well, we seem to have a dilemma. Evolutionists want us
to believe, as they do, that a long time ago, life suddenly and spontaneously
sprang from chemicals. That would seem to contradict the Law of Biogenesis and
all established science since the 1850’s.

Atheists and Evolutionists are clever folks of course and
they know they have a problem, namely there is no such thing as Spontaneous
Generation, even on the bacterial level. So what do they conclude when all
scientific evidence is against them? They conclude there really was Spontaneous
Generation a long time ago and Pasteur didn’t really disprove it. Besides that,
Darwin wasn’t really talking about the origin of life. Others have taken
care of that argument, or not, sort of.

“So we must ask - what did Pasteur
prove? Did he prove that no life can ever come from non-living things? No, he
didn't, and this is because you cannot disprove something like that
experimentally, only theoretically, and he had no theory of molecular biology
to establish this claim. What he showed was that it was highly unlikely that
modern living organisms arose from non-living organic material. This is a much
more restricted claim than that primitive life once arose from non-living
non-organic material.” [8]

“1. Pasteur did not disprove the
origin of life by natural means, and the saying "all cells from
cells" was not intended to cover the initial period of life on earth.
Darwin did not propose a theory of the origin of life in the beginning.

2. Evolutionary theory was not
proposed to account for the origins of living beings, only the process of
change once life exists. However, many have thought that the theory of
evolution logically requires a beginning of life, which is true. Of those, many
have thought that a natural account of the origin of life is necessary, and
some have proposed models which have borne up or not as research proceeds.” [9]

So what did Darwin really "prove", huh, using this reasoning? Did rocks come alive? The Theory of Evolution does require a beginning of life and it does not provide an explanation. In fact no scientific experiment has ever shown that one species can evolve into a different one

Scientists say there is no Spontaneous Generation. “All life
is from life.” I say so too. God is alive and God generated life. It didn’t
happen accidentally from chemicals or non-living matter.

About Me

Welcome to 101 Proofs For God for the "common man" This Blog was inspired by a prayer where I asked God how I could help Him and experienced a deeply lonely heart for His children. Hopefully my inspirations might tweak your thinking about the things all around you in this world.
Each proof should be just short enough for a 1 to 2 minute read.
May God bless you immensely and may you draw closer to Him every day. - Jim Stephens